Another small grant proposal submitted. As ever, I will celebrate getting to this stage, regardless of the panel outcome.

Last week we visited the Migneint Bog #LTE in #Wales. We met with @peatymike.bsky.social & his team from @liverpooluni.bsky.social & he also demonstrated how the automated water table loggers are stored in situ in the dipwells; equipment that was recently funded through our small grants scheme 🌏

Delighted to share our new paper, just published in Environmental Research Letters, on the air quality (AQ) impacts of prescribed moorland burning. We combined burn area estimates, fire hotspot data, and meteorological records to estimate emissions, then a AQ model to simulate population exposure.

It's apparent that many journals still only pay lip service to data availability. A new paper in @pnas.org has the statement: "Study data are included in the article and/or SI Appendix." But the data are not there. Editors/proofing staff should check these things.

Pleased to see this out: 'Assessing the Response of Blanket Peatlands to Climate Change Using the DigiBog Model and Winter's Concept of the “Hydrologic Landscape”'. Available open access here: agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Wow, that is seriously impressive. Rewetting for the win!

A rather wet, windy and cold day on the Migneint with @laurabaugh94.bsky.social and @peatblogger.bsky.social for some GHG sampling. Also got the pleasure of giving @ect-uk.bsky.social a tour of the site.

Out on Chat Moss installing GHG collars with @alicemmilner.bsky.social and @richard-fewster.bsky.social, whilst @fdraper.bsky.social does some drone flights. Really excited to be involved in this new long-term experiment looking at wet woodland on peat.

New policy briefs: Rewetting drained peat soils supports climate neutrality of the EU🌱 Peatlands are powerful carbon sinks — but only when wet. This new series highlights their role in EU climate policy, with country-specific insights for DE, BE, FI, AT, and PL.

Controversial to some, but I am strongly of the opinion that techs frequently deserve co-authorship. (this post brought to you by reading a paper that clearly had extensive logistical support to establish and maintain field sites for multiple years, yet had just two authors)

Back home after a fantastic #EGU26. Final day was a highlight for @livunisoes.bsky.social and all things GHGs: after my presentation on mountain lakes we had some excellent talks and posters by @laurabaugh94.bsky.social, @peatblogger.bsky.social and Junyue Zhou

Managed to survive to the final day of #EGU26? You will find me in Room 3.16/17 first thing today talking mountain lakes.

The highlight of my #EGU26 Thursday was this session. Some really thought-provoking talks and discussions.

One of my @livunisoes.bsky.social undergrad dissertation students has written about her research on pond biodiversity and water chemistry for @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social wirralwildlife.blogspot.com/2026/04/pond...

Thoroughly enjoyed the "BUGS" session at #EGU26 today, which closed with James Kirchner asking the room: what widespread scientific belief in your field will be found to be completely false in the next few decades?

Starting to plan for #EGU26? If you're into mountain lakes then be sure to come see me kicking off HS10.10 session at 8:35 on Friday morning. I'll be talking GHGs, nanoplastics, DOM, water quality and more meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU26/EGU26-...

High above my garden this evening I spotted a single lone swift. My favourite bird - and a clear marker that summer is nearly here.

Reminder that this special issue on peatlands is still open for submissions until end of July. Hosted by Sarah Cook, @tksilver.bsky.social and me. All submissions welcome, but drop me a DM or email if any questions.

Just shy of three years after starting the writing, I have finally submitted the "global" ditch and pond GHG paper from my project LEAF-PAD. So relieved to finally reach this point.

It's taken well over an hour, but I finally finished entering the names, emails and affiliations of 86 coauthors into a manuscript submission portal. Submission is in sight!

Three months in and my new pond is looking good, and is home to some happy tadpoles. Next: to source a few more nice rocks for the edging.

A lovely day on the edge of the Peak District. The six year old's legs managed to do 5 miles, and we escaped the crowds at @nationaltrust.org.uk Lyme Park and headed up to the little summit of Higher Moor.

A whole month later and this garbage is still online. You would have thought that the authors and MDPI might be keen to quickly set things right. Seemingly not.

Another day of greenhouse gas measurements and water sampling on the Migneint blanket bog with @laurabaugh94.bsky.social and @peatblogger.bsky.social

Back to work after Easter to a grant rejection (Leverhulme Research Project). Booooo. Oh well, onto the next one...

My son got a new card game of Welsh legends. This dude is pretty evil looking but honestly, he wouldn't need magical candles to lure me onto bogs; I'd go quite willingly.

Back to normality after a lovely holiday of beaches and hills on Pen Llŷn in North Wales.

How many times a day is it acceptable to check in on a manuscript to see if it has made it past the editor and gone to review? Asking for a friend. 👀

A surprisingly wintry day on the Migneint blanket bog. Three rewetted/restored sites visited for GHG flux measurements with @laurabaugh94.bsky.social and @peatblogger.bsky.social.

Shiny new Rugged TROLL 100 loggers ready for deployment to monitor post rewetting/restoration water tables at our blanket bog for our @water4all-eu.bsky.social funded project.

First batch of pond plants in. Still needs some landscaping but my new pond is slowly getting there...

The authors have informed me this happened because an "AI-assisted tool was used to help organize the reference list". Convinced? No, me neither.

Day 3 of our @livunigeog.bsky.social Lake District physical geography field class. Sampling streams, ponds, ditches, and rivers for water chemistry. @livunisoes.bsky.social

Day 2 of our @livunigeog.bsky.social physical geography fieldclass and the Lake District weather behaved. My groups went off to sample ponds, streams and ditches to understand how land use affects water chemistry.

A rainy day to kick off our @livunigeog.bsky.social first year field class to the Lake District. Today we walked round the local area and talked rivers, flooding, sheep, glaciers, tourism, land-use and more. Fingers crossed for better weather incoming.

A positive first response from MDPI

🦋 Thanks to Llantrisant Community Council for a generous £600 contribution to our 'Save the Small Blue at Cwm Tips' crowdfund! Just £150 to go with 2 days left — help us reach the target: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-the-s... 🌼 Let’s get Cwm Tips back to looking like this! (as shown in the photo).

A new peat paper in @mdpiopenaccess.bsky.social enaccess.bsky.social Problem is, it's chock-full of AI generated references, including several papers with my name on that don't exist. How did the reviewers not spot this? www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/16...

Ryan (and me) are hiring a PhD student! Sweden is a great country to do a PhD, see the link or ask us for more details, or share with potential students!

Thought it would be a good organisational tactic to finally put my office whiteboard to use and map out the papers I need to write. Now I just feel overwhelmed 😱

I do find it slightly amusing that certain high impact Nature family journals request reviews by returned in 14 days yet, recent experience shows, it typically takes their *full time paid editorial staff* the same amount of time to desk reject/send a paper to review.

I love Sweden but its bureaucracy is a farce. 4 years ago, when I lived there, I submitted an application for citizenship. I ticked all the boxes. Today I received a decision: reject, obviously, because I no longer live there. Baffling that it took so long, and an EU passport would have been lovely.

Thanks @ect-uk.bsky.social and @rambleworldwide.bsky.social!

Proposal: submitted! 🥳 Whatever the decision of the review panel, I will, as ever, celebrate getting to this stage.

Just submitted my abstract for the Power to the Peatlands conference. Anyone else from the peaty BlueSky community going? sites.google.com/view/power2p...

My attention has just been brought to the @naturalengland.bsky.social Green Infrastructure Map. Really cool to see the ditch networks in the East Anglian fens mapped at this detail.

A watched manuscript never moves past the editor...

New paper alert! 🚨 Our new study shows that massive lakes in the Congo Basin are outgassing millennial-aged carbon. This challenges the idea that lake CO₂ only comes from modern vegetation. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Thread below! 🧵👇

🚨Funded #PhD opp🚨 in my lab, co supervised by Vincent Maire at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Linking above-and belowground plant #phenology to carbon cycling in #peatlands You can see full advert (in english/french) here: wetlandresilienceresearchgroup.com/Opportunitie... Please share!

Ended the week with a 1st author paper submitted. Really keen to see what the reviewers make of this one; it's a bit different. Watch this space!